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Friday, 29 June 2012

If I speak in the
tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a
clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do
not have love, I am nothing.

Holy God,

We thank you for the gift of love, the greatest of your
gifts to us. Love is precious and beautiful. It is the most important thing in
our lives, and the sign that we are truly made in your image.

But this gift of love comes at a price. The more we love the
more it hurts us to be separated from those we love.

Today we remember those we have loved and have lost. Assure us that they are safe in your care,
that this parting is for now, not for ever.

Be with each person here who is grieving. Help each one
through the pain, to the point where the memories are of the love and not of the
pain of letting go.

Wednesday, 27 June 2012

I’ve just been reading our Scripture
passages set for today, and a few verses from Corinthians stayed in my mind.
Take a look at 2 Corinthians 8:13-15.

I wonder what a real balance
between having too much and having too little would look like? Could we even
imagine it? The aim of those who manage
our economy is that it should be always growing – that we should have more and
more money moving, and people consuming more and more to make that money move.

What would happen if we all just
stopped consuming? What would it look like if everyone said “enough is enough”
and decided not to have more than they need.
I’ve heard reports of some economists who believe the constant growth in
an economy is unsustainable – and that what we ought to be aiming for is a
stable economy – one that neither grows nor shrinks.

For that to happen, we’d all have
to be satisfied with less, or at least with no more. I wonder if we are even capable of doing
that? For generations, we’ve been conditioned to want the latest and the best
of everything. Some technology is even
designed to be redundant in a set time-frame. It would take a radical re-think
of everything. Businesses that now aim
for continuously increasing profits would have to aim at keeping the same
profit year after year.

While we in Australia keep seeking
wealth, to have more and more, there are people in the world living on less and
less. I wonder how big the gap between
wealth and poverty must become, before the wealthy become interested in seeking
a balance.

Friday, 22 June 2012

In 1977, three churches joined
together, in response to Jesus’ prayer “that they be one”, with the aim of
becoming not just another denomination, but at being a dynamic movement for a
symbol of wider Christian unity.

Hymn Together in Song 215 You servants of God, your Master
proclaim

Prayer of Adoration and Confession

God of the church,

We thank you for your constant faithfulness
to the church you called into being,

your promise to be our God,

As you invite us to be your
people.

We confess

That we have not always been your
faithful people

We have at times lost track of
your call to love you first and foremost,

To love our neighbours as
ourselves,

We repent and are sorry

For our failings,

And for our deliberate misdeeds

Forgive us our past, and guide us
in our future,

In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Declaration of Forgiveness

Kids’ Time – Ruth

Hymn Together in Song 670 Jesus put this song into our hearts

Scripture - Emma

Ephesians 2:19-22

John 17:1- 11

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God!

Sermon

My first memory of the Uniting
Church is from when I was 11 years old. The Sunday school teacher asked who had
been at our Sunday school before. I, along with all the other kids, put up my
hand. And we were told we were wrong. It was an entirely new Sunday School,
because it was an entirely new church.

As of Friday, that entirely new
church is 35 years old. Birthdays are a
great time for reflecting on our past and looking forward to our future. So we’re going to start that with a message
from the Rev Alistair Macrae, the President of the Assembly.

Thursday, 21 June 2012

On Friday, the Uniting Church in Australia turned 35 years
old. This week, I’ve been re-reading Baptism of Fire, John Harrison’s book
about the first decade of the life of our church.

I came across these wonderful quotes, from the year after
the church’s formation:

The Premier, Mr
Bjelke-Petersen, said today many Christians were deeply disturbed at trends in
the Uniting Church in Queensland. He said they were concerned at the way the
church was being manipulated into supporting left wing causes. Dwindling
congregations showed the church was losing what moral influence it had left.
The church was also closely associated with causes being promoted by the
Communist Party, atheists and humanists. – Qld Premier’s Department news release 1978.

We who are nourished
in the brilliant insight of the Bible, who are the heritors of Calvin, Knox,
Cromwell and Wesley, need no political parties, socialist or otherwise, to form
our minds on the proper liberties of Christian subjects. – Qld UCA
Moderator Rev Rollie Busch, 1978.

The issue under debate at the time, was the handing over of church mission
stations to state control. The church
wanted the indigenous residents of those communities involved in decisions
regarding how their communities would be run – the government simply wanted to
take over without reference to anyone. At stake was the continuing access to
the natural resources (bauxite, etc) which the government had been selling to
mining companies, without returning anything to the communities.

Our origins as a church were embroiled in controversy. Even the inauguration and induction of the
first president was met with protest by an anti-ecumenical group.

Throughout the last 35 UCA has throughout the years risked
controversy in its struggle to do what faith and theology have told us was
right. Through that time, lots of people have echoed Sir Joh Bejlke-Petersen in
predicting the decline and end of the church. Comments like “last one out, turn off the
lights,” have been made again and again. Yet, we’re still here. And we will still stand up for what faith,
informed with sound theology, will tell us is right.

Wednesday, 13 June 2012

This week the state premier announced a change to civil
unions – they would go on being registered, but there would no longer be a
ceremony to celebrate them so as to avoid offending Christians.

Leaving aside the question of how weak a person’s faith must
be if it is damaged by someone else’s commitment to a lifelong relationship,
this raises the whole question of what marriage actually is, anyway.

Marriage, as we know it, is not the way marriage has always
been, or has always been celebrated.

In Biblical times, it wasn’t celebrated as a religious
ceremony, but as a civil and legal matter – a property transaction. Remember the story of Jacob, working for
Laban for seven years for his wife – and then being cheated into taking the
wrong sister, and having to work another seven years for Rachael. A woman was a
piece of property. She was owned by her father until sold to her husband. There
was no need for her to consent or to be involved in the negotiations in any
way.

The church became involved in marriages when couples began
going to seek a blessing for their marriage on the steps of the church – over time
a blessing on the steps became a blessing inside the building. But marriage was still always a civil and
legal matter – the church’s involvement was only to bless what had been done
through civil channels.

In much of the world, this separation is still very clear –
people gain their marriage licence from civil authorities and then go to the
church for a blessing on what has already been done. It gets lost a little in Australia, because
clergy who conduct the wedding (a service to bless a marriage) also do the
civil and legal paperwork on behalf of the State.

Currently, the debate is raging about civil unions and the
possibility of Gay marriage in some future time. And people are anxious because that would
require a huge revolution in our understanding
of what marriage is.

I would suggest we had an even bigger revolution in our understanding
of marriage a couple of decades ago, and hardly anyone objected or noticed. Until
a couple of decades ago, Christian wedding services still acknowledged marriage
as property transaction, the question was still asked: “Who gives this woman to
be taken by this man?”

The change in the
understanding of marriage to the point where today both parties are counted
equally as human beings (not one as a piece of property) is a much bigger change in thinking than
anything the government may be considering now.

So what is “Christian marriage”? What is “Christian”
anything? What makes an institution
Christian or otherwise is not the set of rules around it, but the faith of the people
in it. In that sense, many marriages
that have been celebrated in the church are not “Christian” marriages, and
quite possibly many that have been celebrated outside the church have become “Christian.”

It’s only a brief reflection
today – I wanted to leave the most possible time to enjoy our guests’ singing.

So there’s two things I want us
to notice in this passage.

The first is that human families
aren’t perfect.

We’ve just read about Jesus human
family turning up, while he’s in the midst of his ministry work, thinking he’s
gone crazy and wanting to take him home by force. And Jesus’ response is to disown them – “if
you’re going to carry on like that, you’re not my family.” It’s not that he
doesn’t love them. On the cross, he asks one of his disciples to take the
responsibility of a son and help care for his mother.

It’s not that he doesn’t love
them. But he is very upfront about telling them they’ve got it all wrong. They
may have had his best interests at heart, wanting to take him safely home to
Nazareth, not really understanding what he was doing.

Human families are like that.
Sometimes we do some really hurtful things, while trying to be caring. Sometimes we just don’t understand each
other. Sometimes we argue. And in some families the hurt is so bad that the
breach can never be mended. It’s sad, but sometimes that’s just how it is.

The other thing we note in this
passage is that we are not only part of our human family.

Jesus claims us for his brothers
and sisters if we live according to God’s will. OK we’re human, we don’t do
that perfectly. But the interesting
thing about this family, is that a part of it is perfect.

When we use the image of “father”
for God, or “mother” for the Holy Spirit (as in being born of the spirit), of
Jesus as our brother (because he claims us as his brothers and sisters) some
people have a problem with that. Their experience of human parents, of human
family is one that just isn’t good.

But this is the difference. Even Jesus’ human family messed up. God doesn’t mess up. When we’re part of God’s
family, we’re always loved, always welcome, always forgiven, always allowed to
have another try at getting things right.

We can’t judge our place in God’s
family in accordance with the human family we are part of. Instead, God’s
family gives us a model for our human families to aspire to.

Orlando Choir

Notices

Offering

Prayers of the People

Loving, Father,

In a time of silence we, your
adopted children, pray for our family and our world.

(silence)

Loving God,

You know our thoughts, and wants,
our hopes and desires. You know our greatest needs, and the needs of all your
children.

Be with this world of yours, and
all your children we pray, In the name of Jesus who makes ups part of your
family, Amen.

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

In the past week I’ve been asked by two people, for entirely
different reasons, if we are a “gay-friendly” church.

It’s a question I find strange. Our church is people-friendly (even
pet-friendly when the pets are suitably restrained). When new people come to
church, we welcome them, we don’t try to categorise them or judge them.

In the 21st Century, we’re used to be “fine print”
on contracts, the “end user licence agreements” for anything on the computer. We’re used to there being exceptions to every
rule.

But when Jesus gave us the “love your neighbour” rule, there
wasn’t any fine print added. There was
no subclause saying “unless….” In fact when someone asked for clarification,
Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan – the story illustrating that the
person we have the least in common with is still our neighbour. More than that, just in case anyone wasn’t
completely clear on the point, Jesus also told us to “love your enemies.”

So I find the idea of whether or not we are friendly to a
particular sub-group of people to be strange. If we are going to be who we are called to be,
surely we must be “friendly” to everyone we encounter!

Books by Iris, available in Paperback and eBook versions

Patchwork

Patchwork is an anthology of short stories and poems by author and blogger Iris Carden. In this volume, you will deal with the aftermath of a dog bite in Bad Moon Rising, spend a sleepless night with The Possum in the Roof, and investigate a weird religious cult in The Time of Blood and Death. The print version of the book has a bonus story not in the eBook version.

Beside Still Waters

A book of sermons and brief reflections on Christian Scripture, by Rev Iris Carden. There is no specific order to the items in the book, they are intended to each be a "surprise" in that they are not related to the items around them. It is hoped that in each, the reader will find something new or special, or unexpected, a message from God. Rev Iris Carden has a Master's Degree in Theology and more than 10 years of experience as a Christian minister.

Cat-it-orial

Mr Bumpy is such a talented cat, he even runs his own website: mrbumpycat.com. He is a blogger, and a very bad cat. His favourite hobby is world domination. His next hobby is harassing the humans and other animals he shares a home with. In this book, you can see the world through the eyes of a megalomanicat, and some of the other animals who share his home.

Group Meeting

(Novella) In a facility for people recovering from mental illness: a group of people with sinister pasts starts to be visited by a girl who doesn't exist.

Karlee

Failing author Terry Dixon is made an offer that seems unbelievable. He can have all of his problems solved, have everything he has ever wanted, for a price. The price is something that "will not be too difficult" for him to pay - but it is not specified what it actually will be. With bills mounting up and a deadline looming, Terry agrees to a deal with something he knows nothing about.<

About the Author

Iris Carden is a retired Uniting Church minister and former journalist. Lupus forced her to stop working. On good days she writes.